


still

by ninemoons42



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Love Confessions, Love at the end of the world, M/M, Vignette, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-31 05:25:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12675279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Maybe it's the rain, and the cold that comes with it, and the quiet in the world, but Ignis thinks it's time to say something important.





	still

Cold wet wind carding roughly through his hair, the chill on his scalp more uncomfortable than the rain falling down the back of his neck, and that’s an irrational distinction, Ignis thinks, when it’s been storming for hours and there’s no warmth or shelter to find other than this tiny enclosed space of metal and rotten wood underfoot.

He spares one hand to draw his (completely soaked, completely inadequate) jacket closer, because he maybe wants to hold on to his dignity, what little he has when the roof leaks and the world is both that much clearer to him with all the sounds echoing around him, and that much more obscured. 

With the other hand he clings to his spear.

He can’t help but strain to listen, the storm muffling some echoes and amplifying others, and no logic in what he hears clearly and what he can’t make out. 

Footsteps, then: he tenses, he tries to take in a breath so he can snap to his feet if he needs to, so he can get into position for a first strike -- and the long sigh stops all his combat instincts dead in their tracks. Long sigh, and the weight of that presence that solidifies next to him as he comes into contact with broad shoulders and -- dripping hair.

The latter is unfortunate but he spares Gladio the jab and just draws him in: winds his arm around the breadth of his torso. Pulls him close. 

Token protest: “Dripping.”

“I will soon be drenched myself, if we stay here any longer. It doesn’t sound like the roof is going to give way now, but I am quite it’s well on its way there,” he says. “So I can be rained on now or rained on later. I cannot perceive the difference.”

“Don’t die of a cold,” is the only response he gets.

Gallows humor, he thinks, is the only kind that makes sense these days, and if even Prompto’s jokes have turned morbid, then -- nowhere to be but in the deepest pits of the long, long, long night.

(Last he’d heard, Prompto’s spent the better part of a year quartering the far-flung outskirts of Leide, always on the alert for refugees and lost souls.)

(Here he is closer to Galahd, closer to its vicious storms, with precious few havens left and many of them already crumbling.)

(Two years, heading into the third, since -- since.)

He doesn’t jump when Gladio’s arm finally winds around his waist in return, but it’s a near thing. He blames the rain.

Gladio’s arm around him, and the pure comfort of his presence: and Ignis dares, and murmurs. “Just us?”

“Give it time,” is the equally quiet response. “Someone will stumble on this place. Or we’ll need to do some killing. Always seems to come back to that.”

“Yes. Unfortunate. But -- ?”

Pause. Sigh, next to him.

“Yeah it’s just us,” Gladio says, at last. “Iris is on the move. Cor and Highwind, the same.”

“It will be nice to have a little backup, again,” Ignis says.

Gladio’s snort is half incredulous. “You don’t have to bend over backwards to be -- reassuring. I appreciate it but -- little late in the day. Save the effort for yourself if I were you.”

“All the more reason to be reassuring,” he says, and he turns his head, and rests his cheek against a damp shoulder. “Because morning is a long, long way from here.”

He expects a grunt, a snide comment, or complete silence in response.

He’s not expecting the kiss that lands partway in his hair, and partway on the shell of his ear.

It’s -- he immediately returns the gesture, catching Gladio on what feels like the corner of his eye. And: “Not that I am complaining, but -- why?”

“Just grateful.” But it takes a long time before the rest of the words follow. “Thought we’d -- lose this, whatever this is, in the night.”

He allows himself a sigh. “And perhaps I know why you thought so: but the world as we know it has come to another end. When else could we possibly be doing this, whatever this is?”

This time Gladio does grunt.

He sounds, perhaps, fond.

And Ignis hears the scrape of a greatsword being set aside, so he knows, so he’s prepared, when he’s completely enfolded into Gladio’s embrace: and eagerly he leans into him.

It’s warmth and it’s comfort and it’s courage, to snatch a moment of intimacy: a small thing with which to defy the night and its horrors.

He’s still listening to the rain and its echoes. He’s still got his spear in his hand. He’s still ready for first strike.

But he’s also listening to the breaths gusting over his neck, and the metallic stink of the rain on battered leather, and the steady pound of Gladio’s heartbeat.

He traces soft patterns into the back of Gladio’s neck with a fingertip.

“Could say it, but,” he hears and feels Gladio say. The words rumble pleasantly, soothingly, along his skin. “But it always feels like shit timing.”

“Better shit timing than no timing at all,” and he adds, “but if it makes you feel better, consider it said.”

Unexpected jolt of a quiet laugh. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it didn’t really work.”

“Then you will just have to deal with it.”

But he does take pity on him, and he turns his head until he can say, right against Gladio’s mouth, “Stay a moment, beloved.”

Long pause.

And: “I like that. Beloved.”

The word rings clearly in the hushed roar of the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr at my FFXV sideblog [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or at my main [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
